The present invention relates in general to a curvature correction circuit. More particularly, the present invention relates to a non-linear temperature sensistive generator circuit which generates an output current which is non-linear with respect to temperature.
Many types of integrated circuits provide an output having either a specific relationship with respect to temperature or which are supposed to be independent with temperature. Normally, it is desired that the outputs of such integrated circuits be well-controlled functions, and it is often necessary to provide a current or voltage that has a non-linear relationship with respect to temperature.
The purpose of such non-linear currents can be for either curvature correction to improve the linearity of a voltage reference with respect to temperature changes, or to add specific non-linearities to the current or voltage that is being output from the device.
Prior art circuits have achieved curvature correction using relatively complicated circuitry such as a breakpoint method. Problems with such prior art approaches are that the relative complexity can be undesirable from both operational and economic viewpoints.